“They’re going to kill me, aren’t they? Destroy me?”
Without slacking pace, the robot answered in the voice of OMM, “It’s all right. I am with you. Blessings of the State. Blessings of the masses. You will be consumed, and in consumption there is expiation for your wrongs. Transgression is atoned for. Consumption is economically and ethically efficient. Be glad of your chance to cleanse your soul by serving the masses. Meditate and be happy.”
THX stopped dead. “Be happy? When they’re going to kill me?”
The robot walked on a few paces before noticing that its prisoner was no longer keeping pace beside it. It turned slowly, fixed its electro-optical eyes on THX and advanced toward him. The pole lowered and pointed straight at his face.
“Keep moving,” the robot said, in a policeman’s voice, not OMM’s.
THX glared at the robot. It took another step toward him, and the pole weaved slowly in front of THX’s eyes. Stay alive, said a silent voice in his mind. Stay alive.
THX let his head slump forward a little, and the pole moved away from him The robot turned and resumed walking; THX followed, head still down.
After what seemed like hours he saw a speck of color, a solid shape, far far off in the distance. The robot was walking toward it. THX moved up alongside the policeman, straining his eyes for a better look at whatever it was.
It was a group of people, clustered around what looked like oblong boxes. As they got nearer, THX recognized that the boxes were actually bunks, set atop blue plastic structures that seemed to have drawers and doors in them, under the sleeping mattress. Ten bed modules, nine people—all dressed in rumpled white pajamas.
THX realized the tenth bed-module was for him.
The robot advanced as far as the edge of the little group, pounded his pole on the floor, and announced simply:
“THX 1138.”
The people—one of them was a woman-looked at him for a moment from where they stood or sat or lay. Then they turned away. All but one—SEN 5241.
THX recognized him as the police robot walked off, pacing the moments with his firm, steady tread. SEN smiled quizzically at THX, then made his way around one of the bed modules toward him.
SEN said quietly, “I know you turned me in.”
THX said nothing.
With a shrug and an aimless gesture that took in the tiny universe of beds and people, SEN added, “I’m doing quite well here, anyway.”
THX looked at the others. One was obviously blind, sitting on the edge of his bed module staring at the world with blank eyes. Near him sat an old man with a kindly face, talking to a pimply youngster. The woman was sitting alone, she seemed to be sulking about something. Or maybe she’s mentally defective, THX thought, looking harder into her burning, hate/fear haunted eyes. Off to one side of the cluster was a giant of a man who was clearly insane: he giggled and jibbered, drool spilling down his chin, huge apelike hands clapping clumsily over something no one else could see.
With a shudder, THX realized that these would be his companions for the rest of his life.
“I’m setting some things up,” SEN was babbling on, “but it’s not easy… a very difficult balance.”
He took THX by the arm and led him to an empty blue bed module. “Here, this is yours.” THX sank down onto the mattress. It was spongy, almost comfortable.
SEN sat down beside him, keeping his voice low while his eyes darted around as if searching for danger. “Let’s get some things straight right from the start. It’s going to take some time for you to see my over-all plan, so until then, stay out of things that you don’t understand, all right? You’d just be making it more difficult for me… It’s the least you can do. Right?”
We’re trapped in this hell and he’s making plans? THX wanted to scream.
“What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you answer me? Don’t be like that…”
The old man with the kind face, a wrinkled, withered face with watery blue eyes and sunken cheeks, came up and bent close to THX.
“It’s all right,” he said. “You’re safe now. You’re with friends, comrade. My name is PTO 0340.”
THX turned away from him. PTO shrugged, glanced at SEN, then shuffled away shaking his head.
SEN whispered to THX, “You’re a stupid man.” Then, still smiling amiably and watching to see who was watching him, SEN got up and went to his own bed module.
THX sat immobile on his bed. One of the younger prisoners was doing sitting-up exercises on the floor next to his module. The retarded woman was sitting huddled on her bed, in a trance, mumbling incoherently. THX saw now that her clothes were torn in many places. A thin, delicate-looking man knelt on the floor, well away from the beds, painting huge lopsided red designs on the smooth, bare floor.
The big man, the idiot, was bouncing up and down on the edge of his bed, chuckling insanely and uttering aft ear-shattering whoop every few minutes.
And SEN was sitting on his own bed, counting stacks of food cubes that he had amassed. Part of his plan, THX thought disgustedly. Without a word, he stretched ouf on his own bunk and went to sleep.
Time lost all meaning. THX slept and ate, listened to the other inmates, watched them carry out their lives around the ten blue bed modules. Food arrived in their receptor bins when a musical tone sounded and a blue light flashed. SEN always managed to get at least one extra food cube from somebody. Many of them came from THX, who had no more hunger.
Several times THX awoke from sleep with a start, and found the idiot giant, TRG 3442, staring at him.
Through it all, THX did not speak. Words were completely useless, inadequate, meaningless. The others talked, though. They talked without end.
PTO and SEN argued over invisible points of logic all the time. Often DWY 1519, a thin, nervous man, stood between them and kept the discussion going when otherwise it would have wound down.
“Why are they holding us here?” PTO once asked, rhetorically. “Why don’t they destroy us right away? Economically, it’s not sound at all. Very much unlike…”
SEN broke hi, with a patient smile, “I’ve said many times before, and I suppose I’ll have to repeat it again for your…”
“Economically…” DWY began.
But PTO kept right on, “It is incalculably more destructive for you to believe you are about to be destroyed than if you actually were destroyed. We’ve got many residents on the verge of hysteria. It’s got to stop.”
“What are you talking about?” demanded SEN. “When did you sleep last? Do you know what your trouble is? You’re blind. You’ve been here so long you can’t see what is happening. We must unite.” He clenched his hand. “We need unity. We need action. We have come to a time when we must…”
“Unite!” DWY said.
SEN turned toward him, beckoned to him, and DWY bent his ear close to SEN. “Listen,” SEN told him, “why don’t you go over and give a hand to TWA? He’s really much more interesting than either of us.”
DWY straightened up, his face at first surprised, then depressed by his erstwhile leader’s rejection. He slowly backed away, then turned and went toward TWA, the blind man, who was pacing between the beds, hands extended outward like an insect’s antennae.
PTO watched the younger man leave them, his face a study of grandfatherly concern. Then, turning back to SEN, he plunged back into the debate:
“Grasping the essential nature of our situation here is not an act of intuition, but a subtle process of the intellect. Intuition is the state of mind most susceptible to fear and terror, intellect the most removed.”
THX watched them from his bed. SEN looked exasperated, the old man seemed to be enjoying himself.